Word: spadolini
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Still, when Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini, 60, leader of the small but pivotal Republican Party, abruptly withdrew from the government with two other Republican ministers on Oct. 16, Craxi's government seemed doomed to collapse. Spadolini was angered by the Prime Minister's decision to release Mohammed Abul Abbas Zaidan, the Palestinian Liberation Front leader who Washington believes planned to use the Achille Lauro to launch an attack on Israel. Furious at having been excluded from any prior consultation in that decision, Spadolini was also protesting what he considered the pro-Arab tilt in Rome's Middle East policy...
Criticism from the U.S. and from Spadolini's Republicans came as a "bitter surprise" to Craxi, who sought to appear as a wounded but loyal ally standing up for his nation's independence. Italians responded positively to the Prime Minister's posture. Indeed, a poll in the newsweekly L'Espresso showed 61% approval for Craxi's show of independence from the U.S., while only 19% disapproved...
...chat: "I'm sitting here with my very good friend." For Italians worried about the potential threat to Italo- American relations, it was a signal that Craxi had been given a tacit endorsement by the White House. Said one political observer: "The new Craxi government is a Reagan creation." Spadolini suddenly found himself isolated. The Defense Minister negotiated his price for remaining in the government: a foreign policy more closely aligned with NATO, a stronger antiterrorist stance and better coordination among the coalition partners...
Craxi's actions also alienated someone else: his Defense Minister Giovanni Spadolini. The leader of the small (29 members in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies) Republican Party within Craxi's five-party coalition, Spadolini had grown increasingly unhappy with Craxi's foreign policy in the Middle East, which in the Defense Minister's view was increasingly pro-P.L.O. and ( excessively anti-Israel. But what bothered Spadolini even more was that Craxi made the decision to release Abbas without consulting him. Incensed, the Defense Minister announced in advance that he would not attend a Cabinet meeting that Craxi...
...Rome, meanwhile, the Craxi government's impending collapse had become almost inevitable. By Wednesday, Spadolini had made it official: he and two other Republican Party ministers were leaving the government. Craxi scheduled a parliamentary debate on the hijacking issue for the next day and observed, "Now everything is more difficult and uncontrollable...